Demons V
“What’s going on?! What happened to the power?!” Nut yelled as everyone else inside the casino murmured about, just as confused as her. It was totally pitch black and none of them could even make out the outlines of each other.
“A circuit must’ve overloaded somewhere,” Frayed Wire said
“That can’t be it, there should still be light from the big lights outside. And there are backups for everything here,” Double Duty gruffly responded.
“Well what do you think it is, then?” Frayed Wire asked, all of them could plainly here the annoyance in his voice after being corrected.
“This is your casino, Silver Tooth. Got any ideas?” Acid Rain asked.
He shook his head, despite it being pointless since they couldn’t see. “No, something like this has never happened before!”
As more and more panicked voices started to emerge around them, as well as the sounds of ponies bumping into things and each other, Frayed Wire finally had enough. “Oh for the love of… all of you shut up one second!” The unicorn gang leader yelled and activated his magic, using a spell that was useful for a worker like him he created a lantern of light at the tip of his horn to allow them all some vision. “There, morons.”
Silver Tooth realized he could do the same and created another ball of light to give them more illumination. “At least that’s something...”
“Well now we can try and figure this out,” Double Duty grumbled.
“I wonder if the lights are off in the housing blocks too. Maybe we should go join up with the rest of our gangs?” Nut suggested.
“If the lights are totally off down there too then things are going to be a mess. Not everyone will be around a unicorn who can do this,” Double Duty said.
“That’s all the more reason to go then,” Nut implored. “We need to help them. That’s what… that’s what Rainbow Dash would do, isn’t it?”
“Fair point,” Double Duty sighed and looked to Silver Tooth. “Hey you, get all your unicorns together and see if they can make lights like this, we’re heading out.”
“R-Right,” Silver Tooth didn’t like being ordered around like that but in this situation there wasn’t much they could do about it.
The big group of ponies all left the casino together and just like Double Duty initially thought there were no lights on outside across the whole promenade either. It was like looking out into a huge dark cave. With the minuscule lights from the unicorns they could still see each other and where they were going but not much else. It was a strange and worrying circumstance, unusual and unexpected for all of them.
Nut shivered as she walked along. “Brr, it’s cold...”
Acid Rain suddenly stopped in his steps, another pony bumping into him, but he took no notice of that. “It is cold.” He looked around for a moment, seeing some others shivering, and then looked to the walls and tried to listen for something for a moment before gritting his teeth and shouting: “Everyone, wait! Wait up for a second!”
The whole group stopped for him, the others all looking at the pegasus and grumbling. Double Duty raised an eyebrow in annoyance and asked him what was going on.
“Just be quiet for a second, all of you, and listen!” Acid Rain said and closed his eyes.
The others decided to do the same for a minute, listening along in silence with him.
Frayed Wire soon opened up his eyes and frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” Acid Rain sharply opened his eyes and pointed at him. “Nothing. The fans, the whole ventilation system in the walls, it’s all been turned off. And it suddenly got colder in here, the heating’s gone. And the lights. Resin turned it all off, she’s completely cut off the power down here!”
“B-But if she’s cut off the power and the vents and heating isn’t working then...” Nut stuttered.
Acid Rain gulped, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “We’re in a very bad situation.”
Double Duty narrowed his eyes and looked in the direction of the large door that separated the lower levels from the upper levels. He couldn’t see all the way to it but he knew they had to check on it. “Come on! We have to see if the door is still closed, hurry up and follow me to the steps!”
The whole procession followed him at a much faster pace, practically running, until they got to the middle of the promenade and could head up the steps. In the meantime they had all noticed that it was getting colder and colder in here. Not just the air but the metal beneath their hooves was cooling down. All of them were getting more and more worried, hoping that it was just a mistake or the power would shortly come back on or something would happen that meant they weren’t doomed. Shortly they got to the top level of the promenade and ran for the door, the lights from the unicorns illuminating the cold metal floor in front of them.
Until they made it and saw only a cold barrier that still blocked them from leaving.
“This is bad...” Frayed Wire grit his teeth.
Double Duty used Frayed Wire’s light to search around for the keypad and finally found it. His blood ran cold though as the thing was completely dead. Didn’t matter what buttons he pressed, it never lit up or did anything. There was no power on this side so even if they had the code or could hot-wire it they wouldn’t have been able to do anything. The only way that door could potentially be opened was from the other side now. As the others watched Double Duty they all came to the same horrifying realization that Nut finally put into words.
“We’re trapped.”
Up near the top level of the city, Crush and some of his officers were herding a number of ponies out of one of the lounge areas that was adjacent to the exterior wall of the city. Like many other sections it was built to cleanly break off of the mountain after a few prerequisites were met. The ponies who had been in there, and others who were around that saw what was going on, weren’t happy but they also weren’t going to start a fight with Crush. Their spirits were too broken for that. Perhaps if they had some weapons they would’ve done something but all Crush’s security team needed to do was threateningly brandish their clubs once and that was it. So despite their being upset and a few protestations there was no issue when it came to forcing them into other areas that weren’t to be ejected. Crush basically just had to tell them to head home for the day.
Once they checked to make sure the lounge was completely clear of ponies they left to the boundary that divided the lounge from the access section of this part of the city. Now it could be closed off and jettisoned.
Several lines across the perimeter of the boundary showed where things were to be separated and a special locked panel on the wall needed to be opened to start the procedure. Crush was the only one in the entire city, including Resin, who had the keys to open up these panels. Even though he had sent other teams out to evacuate ponies and get other sections ready he’d still have to personally go to all of them and jettison the sections himself.
Crush and his team now stood behind the lines close to a stairwell that led to several places in the upper levels. The hall leading to the lounge was bisected by the boundary.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Crush said and walked over to the interior wall. Right next to the perimeter lines was the panel, he pulled a key out from his uniform and inserted it into the keyhole, opening it up easily. The insides were caked with dust and he had to blow into it to reveal everything. Three important things to note—two big red buttons labeled “1” and “2” and a heavy looking lever next to them.
I wonder if this panel has ever even been opened after it was first installed? Crush thought to himself.
It didn’t matter, he knew what to do next. Breathing in he brought up a hoof and looked to the ceiling where the boundary lines were. Pressing the first button a set of steel bars shot down from the ceiling to close off the way into the soon to be jettisoned section. The first barrier of separation. Crush looked at it for a second before moving his hoof to the second button. He could feel the others watching him, silently asking if he was really going to do all this.
He was.
He pressed the second button and a metal wall slammed down over the bars. The only part of the wall that wasn’t solid metal was a small window of unbreakable glass at pony height to look out of and check to make sure the jettison went off without a hitch. Both of the buttons had to be pushed in sequence before the lever could be pulled and the explosive bolts in the section activated. Now it was time for Crush to pull that lever.
His red magic grasped the lever and after staring at it for a moment longer he pulled it down.
A loud explosive sound similar to a thunderclap or an over-inflated tire exploding erupted from behind the barrier. The place they were still standing in shook as the other section was launched off the side of the mountain. After the vibrations slowly died down, Crush stepped to look outside the window and make sure it all left completely. What he saw looked “good”. The other former entrances into the lounge were sealed off when he pressed the buttons, fuel lines, pipes and cables were separated as well and nothing was leaking. It had all been cleanly cut off.
“It’s working just like it should be. Let’s keep going, we have a lot to do today,” he said to his team and turned around to lead them to the next section.
Rainbow twisted in the air and kicked away one of the spiders that jumped at her into one of the crabs. Another crab dropped itself from the ceiling at her with its pincers aimed at her head but Rainbow flipped up and grabbed its legs to throw the whole thing behind her. Three more spiders came skittering across the floor at her so Dash dropped down and dodged the little jabs from their front-most legs and attempts to bite her while punching them as they passed. Still, the darn things were persistent and compact and with so many of them they were being a real pain.
She had left the pit room she had been in a while back, traveling through new corridors to get lower and try to shake these annoying things at the same time. Even if she couldn’t destroy them all by the time she got to the door everyone could take part in helping her out with them once she opened it. Of course she still planned to wreck these dumb buckets of bolts all on her own.
A spider jumped up at her so Rainbow Dash ducked and let it pass over her head. Once it did so she grabbed the abdomen and swung it as hard as she could into the wall, denting both the wall and the spider. That was hardly enough to take it out for good though and it quickly recovered and came after her for some more along with its brothers. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and sped down the corridor she was in until she reached the door at the end.
Nothing had been locked so far so…
“Hng!” She grunted as she tried to force the door open. “Oh come on!”
It wasn’t locked but it was rusty and shut a little too tight to open properly without a little extra work. She got it to open slightly but the hinges wouldn’t give all the way. Rainbow Dash tried smashing her shoulder into it to get it to budge but her low body weight and lack of momentum weren’t doing her any favors. The crabs and spiders were gaining on her too, some of them crawling along the walls and ceiling while others skittered across the floor. When the closest ones jumped at her, Rainbow Dash finally managed to open the door enough to slide through it just as the spiders and crabs collided with it.
They forced it open almost all the way with some spilling out into the new room but Dash slammed it back shut as some were still halfway outside. The door crunched on their metal carapaces and Dash saw three of them fall limp, the red lights in their eyes turning off.
She grinned. “Well that’s a few down at least.”
The rest still poured through the door right after and Rainbow Dash took a brief moment to check out where she was now. A stairwell.
“Needed to find a way down so it works for me,” Rainbow shrugged and started flying down the stairs while the spiders and crabs hopped from flight to flight across the railings. They were pretty fast like this and she’d probably need to turn and fight them soon.
When one of them was in mid-jump, Rainbow Dash actually flew up a little and knocked into it. The beast landed awkwardly on the stairs and fell end over end before crashing into the wall on the landing. She didn’t know if it was down for good but it didn’t get up immediately. Rainbow Dash kept flying down, her goal was to get all the way to the bottom since she knew these stairs didn’t actually reach the lower levels and she wouldn’t accidentally go past them. One of the crab monsters really wanted to catch up with her though. It dropped itself down the middle of the stairwell between the railings, pincers at the ready to grasp on to either Dash or the railing on the level she was currently at. Once she circled the level right as it passed her the crab swiftly reached out and tightly clamped onto the end of her tail.
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash squawked at the sudden sensation and the weight of the metal crab tugging her down. She hadn’t seen the dumb thing coming at all.
The thing was heavy enough where she was almost yanked over the railing with it but she managed to brace herself and instead pull it over onto the stairs with her. Its other pincer came up and started trying to grab her hooves or anywhere else but Dash did a good job of avoiding it and started kicking the crab in its legs and body to try and get it to release her. No such luck. That pincer was clamped down tight and it wasn’t coming off so easily.
Because she was stuck on this flight of stairs the other crabs and spiders started to reach her and with this stupid thing on her tail she couldn’t run or fly as good. It wasn’t just its weight it was actively using its strength to try and keep her grounded. So now she was surrounded again and she had this jerk attached to her and snipping at her heels.
Rainbow Dash decided she could at least make some good use out of him and when the first spider jumped at her she swung the crab attached to her tail around and used him like a flail to smash the spider into the wall. Well the spider got crunched and was out of it but the crab still held onto her and more of its buddies came chomping at her. One spider made it onto her back but before it could bit down, Rainbow Dash dove to the side and rolled, banging it against the railing and shaking it off her. Another crab came at her face but she grabbed it right below the pincers and threw it over the railing. She heard it banging from railing to railing as it fell and grinned.
Two more spiders came at her from her right and left now. Rainbow Dash aimed to fly up but the crab on her tail used its other pincer to grab one of the rungs of the railing instead of trying to pinch her elsewhere. Now she was tied down and didn’t have a lot of space to maneuver. Both spiders tried to jump on her but Rainbow Dash extended her wings and hit them away, them landing on their backs, the one on her left she then rounded on and smashed her hooves down as hard as she could into its exposed belly. There was a crunching sound that came from the thinner metal on its bottom side and Rainbow Dash hoped she had damaged something. The other spider had recovered by them and jumped onto her back, Rainbow Dash knew it was going to try and sink those mechanical fangs into her so she wildly bucked about and tried to dislodge it with her wings, not giving it the stability it needed to actually bite her.
With a last grunt she got a “good” idea. Rainbow Dash fell over backwards on the stairs and crushed the spider beast between herself and the crab that was grabbing onto her tail. The crab itself was crushed between the spider and the stairs and broke into pieces. And finally that caused it to release its pincer from her tail.
Rainbow Dash quickly hopped back up and jumped down to the next landing, looking around to see how many more of those metal monsters were pursuing her. The backflop had hurt her a bit too because of how rough it was but she was still alright.
“So how many more of you stupid things do I have to break?” Rainbow asked at the spiders and crabs still there.
Four of them.
She cracked her neck and walked up the stairs towards them. “Boy I bet you things were wishing you were smart enough to run away now.”
A little while later a tired Rainbow Dash flew through the expansive halls that she had been through only earlier today. She was dirt and covered in grime but she didn’t care or slow down in the slightest to catch her breath. She needed to get back to that door and open it up now. The lives of everyone in the lower levels depended on her.
At least she was finally back here, it had taken a lot more searching than she would’ve liked but she made it back to the huge cross-shaped room that led to the promenade. Now she was barreling down it towards those glass doors and the huge barrier door beyond them. 38211. She remembered the code. Rainbow dropped down to the ground once she reached the glass doors and pushed through them, running at a quickened pace even as she was breathing harder. She saw that stupid keypad that was on this side. Great! Just what she needed. And the lights and everything were still on on this side of the door so there was power in this area, if Resin really had turned off the power it must only be out beyond the door.
“Awesome, let’s do this!” Rainbow said as she skidded to a halt in front of the keypad. She took in a deep breath and exhaled, bringing her hoof up to punch in the code. “38211!”
Bzzt!
“Huh?” Dash tilted her head, she knew she entered the code right. “Come on!”
She entered the code again.
Bzzt!
“What’s wrong?!” Dash slammed a hoof down on top of the keypad in frustration. She bit her lip and tried the code a few more times, then a few similar combinations like 32811 or 38121, but nothing was working. The code kept getting rejected and the door wouldn’t open.
Rainbow Dash went down to her knees and yelled at the cold metal floor. “CRUSH! You changed the code after I left, didn’t you?!” She got back up and turned around, breathing heavily with a dead serious glare on her face. “I’ve gotta find him.”
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Great chapter!
Crush is going to regret crossing with Rainbow Dash. she’ll need to hurry before Heartless gets to the ponies from the lower levels.
Oh boy the clock is ticking down... she has to hurry or else everypony is dead
Also, how far our into the story? Is there still much more to come?
10673187
I want to say about 100,000 words left?
10673208
Awesome more adventurous arcs!
Crush is really going to be sorry when he meets Rainbow Dash. I won't be surprised if that Heartless kills him and I doubt anyone will feel bad for him when that happens.